Need help with research

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Hello there.

After reading a few books, not directly related with JtR, but related to the era, I found out that Okhrana became active in London in June 1888. For those who don't know, Okhrana was the political police of the tsar. Their goal was to spy on socialist/communist in exile, both gentile and jews.

Apparently, a man named Wladyslaw Milewski was in charge. I can't find anything online about this man.

Anybody can point me in the right direction?

I've already read:

Plots and Paranoia
The World that never was
The birth of the Vigilante State
Fenian Fire

Any clue about the man would be welcome.

Thanks.

[Mayerling]

Hello there.

After reading a few books, not directly related with JtR, but related to the era, I found out that Okhrana became active in London in June 1888. For those who don't know, Okhrana was the political police of the tsar. Their goal was to spy on socialist/communist in exile, both gentile and jews.

Apparently, a man named Wladyslaw Milewski was in charge. I can't find anything online about this man.

Anybody can point me in the right direction?

I've already read:

Plots and Paranoia
The World that never was
The birth of the Vigilante State
Fenian Fire

Any clue about the man would be welcome.

Thanks.

Hi Sir John,

There is little I can say about Okhrana in London, except this sounds a bit like the "Pedechencko" theory of Donald McCormick which most people feel was faked. He linked an Okhrana plot to make Scotland Yard look weak and stupid using a mad killer on the loose in London to spread panic, fear, and contempt for the police - and possibly attack the East End Jewish and immigrant populations (mostly from Russian territories).

However, I will add that in the literature of the time (stretching it into the 20th Century) I can think of two writers who had similar thoughts which are worth considering - even if you just think that such is not solid evidence.

1) Edgar Wallace - the famous thriller writer's best known novel was "Four Just Men" about a quartet of gentlemen who commit crimes (even murder) to achieve justice (as they see it - that's the problem of the novel) where the law fails. They have left a mark that the public recognizes, and announce that they will kill the British Foreign Minister who is about to sign an agreement with a foreign state to limit immigration to Britain. It's not specified but it is supposedly Tsarist Russia, and the genesis for the powerful Foreign Minister seems to be based on Joseph Chamberlain (who actually was more active in seeking an arrangement with the German Empire in 1899 and 1901, not the Russian Empire).

2) Joseph Conrad - in one of his greatest novels, "The Secret Agent", Mr. Verloc is the agent of a foreign power that has sent a special envoy to London to insist to Verloc that he earn his fees by arranging to commit a major public incident that can be blamed on the left wingers and anarchists in the East End of London. Verloc determines to try to bomb the Greenwich Observatory, using his half-witted brother-in-law to deliver the bomb to the target, but everything goes awry. Scotland Yard (after the disastrous result) gets involved and traces the actual instigator back to "M. Vladimir" at the embassy of the foreign power, who is forced to return home in disgrace. Things don't go well for Verloc and his wife either. This was based on the 1894 attempt by Martial Bourdin, a half-French anarchist, to do exactly the same thing (destroy the Observatory) but who blew himself up instead. Conrad admitted as much in his introduction to the story.

As you can see there is a definite view of a "Russian Imperial" type government determined (in both stories) to wreck public opinion or shut a door on it's left wing entering Britain or remaining there. It may have been a genuine suspicion felt in Britain at the time (until 1907 Russian and Britain had been in frequent collisions in Central Asian politics and in the "Dogger Bank" incident in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, when the Russian fleet fired on a British fishing fleet causing casualties - then they begrudgingly signed an alliance due to their mutual ally France). In Conrad's case, as he was originally Polish, he had a clearer view of Russian politics than most Britains. He would write another great novel, "Under Western Eyes" about the secret police and the left wing underground in Russia and outside it in Switzerland in the wake of a political assassination (suggested by the killing of the anti-Semitic and reactionary Interior Minister Phleve in 1905).

Jeff

[jerryd]

Hello there.

After reading a few books, not directly related with JtR, but related to the era, I found out that Okhrana became active in London in June 1888. For those who don't know, Okhrana was the political police of the tsar. Their goal was to spy on socialist/communist in exile, both gentile and jews.

Apparently, a man named Wladyslaw Milewski was in charge. I can't find anything online about this man.

Anybody can point me in the right direction?

I've already read:

Plots and Paranoia
The World that never was
The birth of the Vigilante State
Fenian Fire

Any clue about the man would be welcome.

Thanks.

Hi SJF,

Not sure if this is your man or not. This clip is from Feb. 1890.

[Robert]

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol10no3/html/v10i3a06p_0001.htm

[Mayerling]

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-f...3a06p_0001.htm

Very interesting, but they missed one event in Paris in 1891 - the murder of General Servistikoff (on an espionage mission in Paris against Russian Radicals there) in December of that year in his Paris hotel suite. The mission may not have been connected to Okhrana activity in Paris, but it would have been a significant black eye to Russian activities there.

Jeff

[Robert]

Jeff, Milewski was code name Agent M. I wonder if that was M for Milewski? Devilishly cunning!

http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt538nf189/dsc/

[Rosella]

0n Page 4 of this document there is a little scrap about your man.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol10no3/pdf/v10i3a06p.pdf

[Rosella]

Apparently Milewski was an independent MVD agent (whatever that may mean!) There is a thread here on Casebook from 2010 named 'Secret Special Branch Ledgers' which may have some info.

[GUT]

Jeff, Milewski was code name Agent M. I wonder if that was M for Milewski? Devilishly cunning!

http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt538nf189/dsc/

Same reasoning Fleming used for M in Bond.

[GUT]

Same reasoning Fleming used for M in Bond.

For Sir Miles Messervy KCMG

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Thank you so much for your generosity every one. I have plenty to go on.

You're the best!